Fayez Lefteh Pur, a 16-month-old baby boy reportedly drowned in a sewage pipe after he fell into an open sewage pit while playing in the street outside his parents’ home in Kora neighborhood of Mashor city(Called Mahshahr in persian).

Although his horrified parents immediately contacted local municipal authorities they refused to send anyone, with neighbours climbing down into the foul effluent-filled pit in an effort to rescue him; it was too late, however, as he was dead by the time his body was retrieved.The deceased was the first child given birth by the grieving mother after 9 years and a long, difficult medical procedure. She and her husband are suffering terribly from the heartbreaking loss.

This is only latest such child death,with uncovered sewage pits regularly claiming the lives of children across Ahwaz region, as in the past few months Mohammad Sadeq Zerganni, a one-year-old Ahwazi boy, just learning to walk, stepped out of his home only to fall into a sewage hole, left uncovered by negligent authorities, and died instantly in Goldasht neighborhood of Ahwaz city. The municipal authorities in all Ahwazi areas refuse to provide basic infrastructure which could prevent such tragedies and protect public health from such unsanitary conditions.

Despite the Ahwaz region housing over 95 percent of the oil and gas resources claimed by Iran, the regime operates a de facto apartheid system which sees the indigenous Arab people of the region living in medieval poverty and denied even a fraction of the billions of dollars of income from the resources on their own land. One result of this is that most of the cities, towns, and villages in the region lack even the most rudimentary sewage system, with the fetid bogs and swamps formed by the accumulation of waste matter making life even more intolerable for the people.Meanwhile, ethnically Persian Iranians coming to the region to work, lured by the incentives offered by the regime (which refuses jobs to Ahwazis), are housed in ethnically homogenous settlements furnished with all the standard amenities, including sewage systems, running water and electricity, which are denied to the indigenous people.